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Sunday, 28 July 2013

We learn this month that Barry George has been denied compensation for being falsely imprisoned for the murder of Jill Dando.

Despite being innocent of all charges against him, and having almost
certainly been framed by the British Establishment, the Courts have
refused to allow George the right to appeal against the decision in what
his sister calls a “travesty of justice”.

Why on earth aren’t the powers-that-be willing to acknowledge the
distress and suffering caused to Barry George by being wrongly
incarcerated for 8 years?
Why aren’t they awarding him an automatic compensation offer as they
have done in other cases where a miscarriage of justice has taken place?
Why are they allowing us to think he is in someway still guilty despite being clearly innocent? Is it because, in their desperation to keep a lid on Britain’s dirty
secrets, they’re willing to sacrifice bloody well anything or anyone?
The answer to that is most certainly yes.

You see the brutal murder of Jill Dando was not carried out by a lone-stalker or Serbian warlord.

The brutal murder of Jill Dando was linked to a VIP paedophile ring which was operating within the BBC and beyond.

The brutal murder of Jill Dando was ordered by the highest echelons
of British society once it became clear that she had evidence of the
ring and was about to expose it.

Jill Dando was shot at point-blank range in the head to silence her
and also to serve as a warning to other journalists to keep their mouths
shut.

Nobody said a word because of Savile’s links to the Royals and Government. Savile is known to have threatened to silence anyone who crossed him by using his contacts in the state run IRA and criminal underworld.But Jill Dando was not a lady to stand by and let innocent children be raped. Jill knew about Jimmy Savile and was not going to be silenced

Jill's close friend and confidante, Cliff Richard, has himself been named as a visitor to the notorious boy-brothel Elm Guest House, where vulnerable children were trafficked from local care homes to be abused by VIP's.

These Elm Guest House VIPS's included former Home Secretary Leon Brittan who is famed for conveniently 'losing' the child abuse dossier given to him by Geoffrey Dicken's MP in 1983. And proving the cover-up is not historic at all copies of these dossiers naming senior Politicians and Judges were seized in 2010 and 'lost' again by three police forces Derby, North Wales and Yorkshire. When these dossiers of evidence were seized by Court Order from intelligence agent Andrea Davison in 2010.

Jill's Elm Guest House friend Cliff Richard was interviewed at length by detectives investigating the murder of Jill on several occasions. Why was he such an important ‘ witness’ ?

Jill’s fiancée, Alan Farthing, came face-to-face with Jill’s killer but conveniently forgot to tell the police. Alan has since risen through the ranks of the medical profession and
is now the doctor responsible for the birth of Kate and William’s new
baby. Was his promotion linked to Jill’s murder?

Jill’s colleague on Crimewatch, Nick Ross, has recently said he’d watch child-porn given half the chance. Nick is married to Sarah Caplan the cousin of Esther Rantzen, who is also implicated in the Savile scandal.

Caplan and Rantzen founded Childline which is suspected now to be a ‘front’
organisation used to filter out callers who may have been the victims of
VIP child-abuse.

Nick Ross founded the ‘front’ Crimestopper’s helpline. This helpline conveniently stopped working following an appeal for witnesses to Jill’s murder.

One of the first journalists at the scene was Clarence Mitchell, who is employed by the intelligences services and was later the spokesperson in the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Mitchell is a notorious master of the dark art of spin and lies, a talent shared by Labour filth, Alastair Campbell, who was strangely also quizzed by the Met at the time of the murder.

There were many procedural ‘mistakes‘ made by the Met Police during their investigations.

Officers conveniently forgot to question Jill’s neighbours and also
botched the e-fit photo of the suspect by making his hair brown when it
was actually blond.

Were these mistakes made deliberately to ensure the real killer would never be caught?

In a most sinister development DCS Hamish Campbell, who was in charge of
the investigation, was then put in charge of Operation Yewtree. Campbell was also head of the investigative review into the disappearance of little Madeline McCann .

Are these mere coincidences or is there much more to the murder of Jill Dando than meets the eye?

Are the Police, the Judiciary, the CPS, the BBC and the Government
implicated in one of the biggest cover-ups this country has ever seen?

It’s no wonder the Establishment won’t give Barry George the justice and compensation he deserves. If they did, their sordid child-abusing secrets may finally be exposed.

Funny how the british police are quick to investigate twitter alleged defamation against Lord McAlpine and prosecute UK nationals for the calling someone a coconut but fail to arrest anyone for threating violence and rape against a brave woman. But then the British Male Police are known to have a lot os women and children haters in their ranks.

And prominent journalists, showbiz stars and politicians are rallying to support Caroline Criado-Perez, who runs the Women's Room, threatening to quit the site if nothing is done to stop the abuse.
Criado-Perez said she had been getting the threats for almost 48
hours since the announcement by the Bank of England that it would put
Jane Austen on the £10 from 2017.

Caroline Criado-Perez has been subjected to vile abuse on Twitter

Tweets to her account, many of which are too grotesque for
publication, include one user who said: "Everyone jump on the rape
train, @CCriadoPerez is the conductor."
Another wrote: "Hey sweetheart, give me a call when you're ready to be put in your place."A petition on Change.org has attracted almost 12,000 signatures, calling for Twitter to address the issue.
Kim Graham said she was moved to start an organised petition after seeing the extent of the threats.
"It is time Twitter took a zero tolerance policy on abuse, and learns
to tell the difference between abuse and defence. Women standing up to
abuse should not fear having their accounts cancelled because Twitter
fail to see the issue at hand," she wrote.
Many have rallied online to defend Criado-Perez, including
journalists Owen Jones, Hadley Freeman, Laurie Penny and Caitlin Moran,
comedian Dara O Briain and Labour MP Stella Creasy and former deputy
prime minister John Prescott.
Moran suggested many prominent Tweeters and supporters leave Twitter
on August 4th, International Friendship Day, for 24 hours, in solidarity
with Criado-Perez and victims of online abuse.
Criado-Perez said she had reported the abuse to the police.Writing in a blog for the New Statesman, she said:
"The don’t feed the trolls adage is one that suggests they have the
power. But if my experience from the last 48 hours does anything, it is
to give the lie to this impression. Troll accounts have been going
private left right and centre.
"My twitter mentions are now overflowing with messages of support,
messages from people saying that they want to shout back too. Messages
from people realising that if we use our voice in unison, we are
legion."
Tony Wang, the general manager of Twitter UK said in a statement on
the site: "We take abuse seriously and will investigate reports made via
https://support.twitter.com/forms.
"We don't comment on individual accounts, but we have rules which
people agree to abide by when they sign up to Twitter. We take online
abuse seriously and provide advice and guidance to our users.
"We encourage users to report an account for violation of the Twitter rules by using one of our report form
"Also, we're testing ways to simplify reporting, eg within a Tweet by
using the "Report Tweet" button in our iPhone app and on mobile web."
Criado-Perez responded:

Felicity Gerry was the CPS barrister who admitted that she failed to disclose evidence to the defence about Mark Kennedy alias Stone. The Mark Kennedy the undercover police officer who's conscience finally made him tell the truth and not support Felicity Gerry in her effort to jail the innocent environmental activists.

Interestingly Felicity Gerry is the same the CPS used to set-up child abuse whistle blower Andrea Davison. Do the CPS have a group of corrupt barristers they use for sensitive set-ups who they can rely on to mislead the court

Mark Kennedy: Undercover Police Infiltrating Activists

I watched this story tonight about Mark Kennedy
an undercover policeman known under the alias of Mark Stone who
infiltrated activist groups across the UK and Europe. He spoke of his
double life with a wife and children and a girlfriend for 4 years who he
stated he loved. He regarded the activists around him as close friends
yet was able to continue as a undercover policeman living a life of
deception by relaying intelligence and participating in planning of
illegal activities and legal protests for 7 years. He indicated on one
protest he had been apprehended by police and beaten up and then taken
for interrogation. As an officer he was unable to speak. He mentioned
that he was ashamed to be a policeman when he experienced the violence.
He indicated what weighed on his conscience was the fact that activists
were ordinary people from all walks of life who were protesting with a
social justice conscience. He struggled with his duty as a policeman
who was not infiltrating criminal organisations but civil groups wanting
to stop activities they felt were wrong.
He further explained at the end of the documentary that he felt
abandoned by the police who terminated his 7 year undercover work,
offered no support and in the end indicated he had no skills. He said he
noticed his file was empty and the Human Resouce person was conveying
he had nothing to offer. He had been a policeman for 20 years and had
extensive experience infiltrating left wing activist groups across the
UK and Europe. He resigned from the police. He was torn in the opposite
direction suffering deep guilt over the betrayal of his friends and the
loss of his girlfriend. He said that the activists would be wondering
how he is when he left but the police didn’t care. He indicated later he
lost his wife and children as well.
It was noted at the end of the documentary that there had been no
criminal charges and real questions were raised about the reason why the
police spend public money on this covert activity.
My own reflection whilst watching the documentary was why police are
infiltrating activists when it is a democratic right to protest. My
question would be are the public the enemy?
I’d like to reflect further on my own experience around activists.
I’ve never seen myself as an activist as I never felt to express my
democratic feeling in opposition. I have felt to raise awareness and
find ways to develop inner peace. However as my focus was peace it was
inevitable I would see and meet those in the protest and peace activist
spectrum. As a result of my radio program ‘Bridges to Peace’ I
interviewed activists and others into peace. I remember years ago as a
clown in Canberra at an Environmental march meeting an undercover
officer. He gave me a card, he was in a Federal anti-terrorism unit. He
liked me and we had a good laugh, it was funny actually. I did send him a
poem which apparently was passed around. I also attended rallies in my
capacity of a radio person and also a clown. As a peace clown I wanted
to ensure people didn’t get violent, I wished to ensure the peace so
people can express in a way that is peaceful. I do recall being filmed
at a rally because I held my hand up too long. I was responding to the
call for truth and for some reason kept my hand up when everyone put
theirs down as the speaker got side tracked. I thought at the time any
minute he will start speaking but he took a while. So I stood out like a
sore thumb. I remember waking up at 3am seeing the guy filming me and
the fact I was seen as an activist. I remember being really amazed that
peace people are treated like they are undertaking an illegal activity. I
remember trying to understand what right they had to film us. I
certainly didn’t give them permission as I would be falsly identified
and judged. It also made me feel uncomfortable supporting causes that in
fact were important.
Another interesting experience was with a few friends of mine who
were organisers of the alternative G8. This was to be held at RMIT
University in the centre of Melbourne. I was asked to be an MC at this
event as I am a good public speaker. I hadn’t been involved in any of
the groups but was aware they were trying to create an open democratic
space for groups to discuss global issues. Without doubt they had
concerns about a global elite engaged in globalisation and corruption
which they saw as destroying not only the environment but local
communities and through the World Bank and IMF creating more indebited
nations thereby having the power to have debt paid back through
austerity measures and forcing capitalist structures of a market economy
on their societies. Indeed their concerns were markets being forced
open in the increasing drive for resources and profit. They had deep
concerns about the global environment, freedom of speech, the war on
terror (at the time) and corporate and political fascism under the guise
of democracy. They felt community empowerment was essential and that
there should be social forums to ensure the public have a voice. I knew
some of these activists personally and found them to be intellectuals
with a social conscience. They were also brave and did know their
rights. I came along for the ride gaining insights into this world. It
was very interesting. I see myself as a clown so for me peace is love
and joy. My style of peace didn’t really fit into this but I had an
interesting experience and learned from those who felt action had to be
taken.
So I turned up on the day of protests as a clown. I went and saw my
friends who were negotiating with police to take a military truck into
the centre of Melbourne. It was a very cute truck with a big pink love
heart on its nose. Apparently when I came down as a clown (quite
innocently I love everyone) I was told later it diffused the tension.
Eventually my friends were given permission to take the truck down the
road. I juggled next to the truck taking in the crowds on the street and
marvelling at the police allowing this. I saw the police as tolerant. I
then just followed my friends and they parked the truck and set up a
sound system. I was asked to juggle on the truck. It was pretty high up
but I didn’t drop a ball. So I wasn’t saying anything just juggling. I
looked down and my only audience was a huge police cordon in a circle
around us. My friend dressed up as a dominatrix (fish net stockings and
leotard) and another guy had a large head of George Bush on. She
handcuffed him (pink fluffy handcuffs) and read out his war crimes. What
was surreal was to see the police as the audience. She then paraded him
past them like an inspection lineup. It was interesting to watch. I saw
one activist taunt the police which I didn’t resonate with. I just
smiled at them, my interest was to diffuse tension and lighten people
up.
I found out later that day that there had been some activists who had
been violent with bins I believe. They could have been agent
provocateurs. These are people paid to create a disturbance. They could
have been violent activists. I don’t really know the truth of that.
There were questions and the other activists didn’t know them. However,
the media picked up on the violence and didn’t cover the G8 issues and
the fact that the majority of people were protesting peacefully and for
reasons. It is a great feeling of solidarity being in a crowd of people
who are protesting and celebrating as well. You really feel a sense of
freedom and people power.
A day or so later we held the alternative G8, I was told to introduce
speakers. I found out later that 2 people had been taken by undercover
police. I was disturbed by this. I was told to announce a mobile phone
number for people to ring if they were taken. Also they could have
people leave with them. I found out later the persons kidnapped were
taken by police who didn’t identify themselves and were in unmarked
vehicles. This came back through those who were taken. I recall that the
persons were taken to the police station and interrogated and then put
back on the street with their pants down. I had no idea the point of
this. One of them was from Lentils As Anything (food place) to our
surprise. They are definitely into peace. I understand from others that
it was mistaken identity. However, for myself I really wondered about
why the police do this and is this about democracy or protecting the
powerful. I felt this to be a central question.
Anyway as a result of this violence at the protest and the kidnapping
(really) of two persons, it raised questions for me. I have a friend
who is a former British policeman and consultant to police. I contacted
him. I tried to think of an approach that was proactive and of service
to both sides to understand the conflict better. I asked him how would
the police feel about focus groups being undertaken with police and
protestors. The idea here was to help both groups get to know each
other, to understand social justice issues better, to gain a deeper
awareness of democracy and what that means and how both can work
together to ensure democratic rights are not undermined and the police
are cooperated with to ensure no violence. My friend was well connected
to the top of the police force and my email was sent to top people.
There was no interest in developing a deeper understanding or forging a
democratic approach. This I found incredible. It was a real opportunity
for the police. I was not an activist, yet I knew activists, I was a
researcher and could conduct the research in a way that opened clear
communication channels and served both. Yet nothing happened. I found
that interesting.
I remember interviewing Scott Parkin. He was an American activist who
came to Australia training Australian activists in ways to hold a line
(linking arms) to resist police breaking up a protest. He was part of
the Sydney protest in front of Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s former
company) protesting their involvement in Iraq. He was apprehended in
Melbourne by immigration and intelligence officers and held without
charge. Under the ASIO Act they could hold people for up to 14 days and
question them for around 7 days without a lawyer present. Moreover, the
issue of Habeas Corpus whereby a person arrested must be put in front of
a judge and evidence examined came to my mind at the time. Scott Parkin
was detained, questioned then deported for protesting. A right given to
all people in both the US and Australia. As a community radio person I
decided to ring him in the US to get his side of the story. I found out
he was a former teacher and had real concerns for global corporate power
and its negative affects on democracy, freedom of speech and
exploitation of other countries etc. He felt duty bound to protest. It
was very interesting to learn of his plight. Those who get deported I
believe have to pay for the airfare. So they are financially burdened
(punished) for standing up. I realised there were real civil liberties
issues raised in respect of the suppression of dissenting voices. Yet
the public are told this is a democracy. I felt protestors are seen as
anti-establishment and somehow renegades or rebels that should be
stopped. It seems to be an underlying perception applied to the whole
protest movement. I do understand there is monkey wrenching (damaging
military equipment etc) and protests inside sensitive sites or hoisting
up protest banners to be heard. I see this really as a challenge for
democracy and society to ensure voices are heard so illegal activities
are not necessary. If there are concerns about war, corporate power and
corruption in government there needs to be ways for society to vent
their feelings and evoke change. There is also an underlying fear around
airing of emotions, yet it is important that people express themselves.
In the peace area we call this a safety valve to vent frustration
otherwise violence can break out through oppression or suppression of
voices.
Another insight I gleaned was in Scotland I met up with an activist
friend of mine by chance. She actually yelled out to me on the London
Underground asking if I was the peace clown. This was my first time on
the Underground as I arrived in the UK a few days before. Is that fate?
She invited me to the Climate Camp in Edinburgh. I did consider going
there for the experience but I only had 2 days in Edinburgh before I
flew out. She also said the police were checking, recording names and
frisking everyone going into the camp. The police behaviour did put me
off as I don’t want to feel like a criminal or my privacy invaded and my
name put on some watch list. The environment is definitely a real issue
and the strength of a democracy is hearing all voices for and against.
Not just hearing I’d add but really listening. When respect for
democracy is there people will be heard, that is different from lip
service or being seen to be. Of course the police allow them to protest
but there is a societal belief that they are somehow trouble makers and
subconsciously not to rock the boat. In my view many of the public are
too scared to protest. They feel safe not breaking the rules as they
can’t handle the stress or being out of their comfort zone.
In all my experiences I really felt the true idea and practice of
democracy was not understood or lived. Those engaged in the peace area
appear to be regarded as those to be watched and controlled. The fear
would be that they could develop influence or start a movement and that
would challenge power. The fear is centred on maintenance of power and
the status quo. Yet the notion of democracy really is about the sharing
of power and representation of the people by the people (at essence). So
if those in power feel challenged and act to suppress dissenting voices
then is democracy real? If not, why?
So let’s turn to a policeman’s unique account of being both an
activist and undercover policeman. Here is a BBC report on Mark Kennedy
the undercover policeman who infiltrated environmental activists and the
amazing world he revealed and the inner conflict he experienced as his
conscience forced him to re-evaluate his part.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_%28police_officer%29Mark Kennedy (born 7 July 1969, Camberwell, South London)[citation needed] (also known as Mark Stone and Flash) is a former Metropolitan Police officer who, whilst attached to the police service’s National Public Order Intelligence Unit,[1] infiltrated many protest groups between 2003 and 2010 before he was unmasked by political activists as an undercoverpoliceman.[2]
The case against six activists accused of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass at Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station collapsed following the revelation of Kennedy’s activities as an undercover policeman.[3]
Danny Chivers, who was one of the six successful defendants in the case, said Kennedy was not just an observer, but an agent provocateur. “We’re not talking about someone sitting at the back of the meeting taking notes – he was in the thick of it.”[4]
In a taped conversation obtained by BBC Newsnight and broadcast on 10
January 2011 but made some weeks earlier, Kennedy told an activist he
was “sorry” and “wanted to make amends”. Kennedy admitted he had been a
serving police officer at the time of the Ratcliffe arrests, but said he
was not one now. He also told the activist “I hate myself so much I
betrayed so many people…I owe it to a lot of good people to do something
right for a change… I’m really sorry.”[5]
According to the Guardian, Kennedy was born in Camberwell, South
London on 7 July 1969, joined the Met police around 1994 and served with
them till March 2010. In February 2010, while still serving as a Police
Officer, he set up Tokra Ltd, a private company at the same address as a
security firm which works for the energy company E.ON, the owners of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. Later in 2010 he set up Black Star High Access Ltd, based in east London.[6]
On 15 January 2011 Kennedy told The Mail on Sunday
that he was not a rogue cop, and was in daily contact with his bosses:
“My superiors knew where[7]
He also claimed that the police withheld from the defence covert
recordings which would have shown that the defendants were not guilty.
On the first day of the trail Prosecuting Barrister Felicity Gerry, who
had not disclosed who Mark Stone was to the defence team, invited the
Judge John Milmo to return a not guilty plea.German MP Andrej Hunko raised questions in the GermanBundestag concerning what the German authorities knew about Kennedy’s activities amongst the Berlin
protest movement. Kennedy had been arrested in Berlin for attempted
arson, but was never brought to trial. Hunko also asked: “How does the
federal government justify the fact that [Mark Kennedy], as part of his
operation in Germany, did not only initiate long-term meaningful
friendships but also sexual relationships, clearly under false
pretenses?”. The Bundesregierung refused to answer any questions
concerning PC Kennedy for operational reasons.[8]
In a Channel 4
interview broadcast on 14 November 2011, Kennedy stated that, in the
guise of an environmental activist, he was used by the police forces of
22 countries and that he was responsible for the closing down of the Youth House community centre in Copenhagen.[9]
He also stated that he was hired by German police between 2004 and 2009
and allegedly committed two crimes on their behalf, one of which was
arson.[9]

After 1,000 days in pretrial detention, Private Bradley Manning
yesterday offered a modified guilty plea for passing classified
materials to WikiLeaks. But his case is far from over—not for Manning,
and not for the rest of the country. To understand what is still at
stake, consider an exchange that took place in a military courtroom in
Maryland in January.
The judge, Col. Denise Lind, asked the
prosecutors a brief but revealing question: Would you have pressed the
same charges if Manning had given the documents not to WikiLeaks but
directly to the New York Times?
The prosecutor’s answer was simple: “Yes Ma'am.”
The
question was crisp and meaningful, not courtroom banter. The answer, in
turn, was dead serious. I should know. I was the expert witness whose
prospective testimony they were debating. The judge will apparently
allow my testimony, so if the prosecution decides to pursue the more
serious charges to which Manning did not plead guilty, I will explain at
trial why someone in Manning's shoes in 2010 would have thought of
WikiLeaks as a small, hard-hitting, new media journalism outfit—a
journalistic “Little Engine that Could” that, for purposes of press
freedom, was no different from the New York Times. The
prosecutor's “Yes Ma'am,” essentially conceded that core point of my
testimony in order to keep it out of the trial. That's not a concession
any lawyer makes lightly.

The charge of "aiding the enemy" is vague. But it carries the death penalty—and could apply to civilians as well as soldiers.

But
that “Yes Ma'am” does something else: It makes the Manning prosecution a
clear and present danger to journalism in the national security arena.
The guilty plea Manning offered could subject him to twenty years in
prison—more than enough to deter future whistleblowers. But the
prosecutors seem bent on using this case to push a novel and aggressive
interpretation of the law that would arm the government with a much
bigger stick to prosecute vaguely-defined national security leaks, a big
stick that could threaten not just members of the military, but
civilians too.

A country's
constitutional culture is made up of the stories we tell each other
about the kind of nation we are. When we tell ourselves how strong our
commitment to free speech is, we grit our teeth and tell of Nazis
marching through Skokie. And when we think of how much we value our
watchdog press, we tell the story of Daniel Ellsberg. Decades later, we
sometimes forget that Ellsberg was prosecuted, smeared, and harassed.
Instead, we express pride in a man's willingness to brave the odds, a
newspaper’s willingness to take the risk of publishing, and a Supreme
Court’s ability to tell an overbearing White House that no, you cannot
shut up your opponents.
Whistleblowers play a critical
constitutional role in our system of government, particularly in the
area of national security. And they do so at great personal cost. The
executive branch has enormous powers over national security and the
exercise of that power is not fully transparent. Judicial doctrines like
the “state secrets” doctrine allow an administration to limit judicial
oversight. Congress’ oversight committees have also tended to leave the
executive relatively free of constraints. Because the materials they see
are classified, there remains little public oversight. Consider the
Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the interrogation torture
practices during the immediate post 9/11 years: Its six thousand pages,
according to Senator Dianne Feinstein, are “one of the most significant oversight efforts in the history of the United States Senate.” But they are unavailable to the public.
Freedom
of the press is anchored in our constitution because it reflects our
fundamental belief that no institution can be its own watchdog. The
government is full of well-intentioned and quite powerful inspectors
general and similar internal accountability mechanisms. But like all big
organizations, the national security branches of government include
some people who aren't purely selfless public servants. Secrecy is
necessary and justified in many cases. But as hard-earned experience has
shown us time and again, it can be—and often is—used to cover up
failure, avarice, or actions that simply will not survive that best of
disinfectants, sunlight.
That’s where whistleblowers come in. They
offer a pressure valve, constrained by the personal risk whistleblowers
take, and fueled by whatever moral courage they can muster. Manning's statement in court yesterday
showed that, at least in his motives, he was part of that
long-respected tradition. But that’s also where the Manning prosecution
comes in, too. The prosecution case seems designed, quite simply, to
terrorize future national security whistleblowers. The charges against
Manning are different from those that have been brought against other
whistleblowers. “Aiding the enemy” is punishable by death. And although
the prosecutors in this case are not seeking the death penalty against
Manning, the precedent they are seeking to establish does not depend on
the penalty. It establishes the act as a capital offense, regardless of
whether prosecutors in their discretion decide to seek the death penalty
in any particular case.
Hard cases, lawyers have long known, make
bad law. The unusual nature of Manning's case has led some to argue
that his leaks are different than those we now celebrate as a bedrock
component of accountability journalism: Daniel Ellsberg leaked specific
documents that showed massive public deception in the prosecution of the
Vietnam War. Deep Throat leaked specific information about presidential
corruption during the Watergate investigation. Manning, though, leaked
hundreds of thousands of documents, many of which were humdrum affairs;
perhaps, some have argued, the sheer scope raises the risks. But in the
three years since the leaks began, there has still been no public
evidence that they in fact caused significant damage. The prosecutors
say they will introduce evidence of harm in secret sessions; one of
these bits of evidence is reportedly going to be that they will show
that several of the files published were found on Osama Bin Laden's
computer. Does that mean that if the Viet Cong had made copies of the
Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg would have been guilty of “aiding the enemy?”

If the Viet Cong photocopied the Pentagon Papers, could Daniel Ellsberg have been prosecuted for aiding the enemy?

It
is also important to understand that although the number of leaked
items was vast, it was not gratuitously so; some of the most important
disclosures came precisely from sifting through the large number of
items. Certainly, some of the important revelations from the leaks
could have been achieved through a single “smoking gun” document, such
as the chilling operational video from a U.S. helicopter attack that killed two Reuters' cameramen, and shot at a van trying to offer relief to the injured, wounding two children who were in the van.
But many of the most important insights only arise from careful
analysis of the small pieces of evidence. This type of accountability
analysis showed that the military had substantially understated the scale of civilian casualties in Iraq; and that U.S. forces were silently complicit in abuses by allied Iraqi government forces; it uncovered repeated abuses by civilian contractors
to the military. The war logs have become the most important spin-free
source of historical evidence about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The
reputation that WikiLeaks has been given by most media outlets over the
past two and a half years, though, obscures much of this—it just feels less like “the press” than the New York Times.
This is actually the point on which I am expected to testify at the
trial, based on research I did over the months following the first
WikiLeaks disclosure in April 2010. When you read the hundreds of news
stories and other materials published about WikiLeaks before early 2010,
what you see is a young, exciting new media organization. The darker
stories about Julian Assange and the dangers that the site poses
developed only in the latter half of 2010, as the steady release of
leaks about the U.S. triggered ever-more hyperbolic denouncements from
the Administration (such as Joe Biden's calling Assange a “high-tech
terrorist”), and as relations between Assange and his traditional media
partners soured.

In early 2010, when Manning did
his leaking, none of that had happened yet. WikiLeaks was still a new
media phenom, an outfit originally known for releasing things like a
Somali rebel leader’s decision to assassinate government officials in
Somalia, or a major story exposing corruption in the government of
Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya. Over the years WikiLeaks also exposed
documents that shined a light on U.S. government practices, such as
operating procedures in Camp Delta in Guantanamo or a draft of a
secretly negotiated, highly controversial trade treaty called the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. But that was not the primary focus.
To name but a few examples, it published documents that sought to
expose a Swiss Bank’s use of Cayman accounts to help rich clients avoid
paying taxes, oil related corruption in Peru, banking abuses in Iceland,
pharmaceutical company influence peddling at the World Health
Organization, and extra-judicial killings in Kenya. For its work,
WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's New Media award in 2009 and the
Freedom of Expression Award from the British magazine, Index of Censorship, in 2008.

No one would have thought at the time that WikiLeaks had the gravitas of the Times.
But if you roll back to the relevant time frame, it is clear that any
reasonable person would have seen WikiLeaks as being in the same
universe as we today think of the range of new media organizations in
the networked investigative journalism ecosystem, closer probably to ProPublica or the Bureau of Investigative Journalism than to Huffington Post or the Daily Beast.
If leaking classified materials to a public media outlet can lead to
prosecution for aiding the enemy, then it has to be under a rule that
judges can apply evenhandedly to the New York Times or the Guardian no less than to ProPublica, the Daily Beast, or WikiLeaks. No
court will welcome a rule where culpability for a capital offense like
aiding the enemy depends on the judge's evaluation of the quality of the
editorial practices, good faith, or loyalty of the media organization
to which the information was leaked. Nor could a court develop such a
rule without severely impinging on the freedom of the press. The
implications of Manning’s case go well beyond Wikileaks, to the very
heart of accountability journalism in a networked age.

The
prosecution will likely not accept Manning's guilty plea to lesser
offenses as the final word. When the case goes to trial in June, they
will try to prove that Manning is guilty of a raft of more serious
offenses. Most aggressive and novel among these harsher offenses is the
charge that by giving classified materials to WikiLeaks Manning was
guilty of “aiding the enemy.” That’s when the judge will have to decide
whether handing over classified materials to ProPublica or the New York Times,
knowing that Al Qaeda can read these news outlets online, is indeed
enough to constitute the capital offense of “aiding the enemy.”
Aiding
the enemy is a broad and vague offense. In the past, it was used in
hard-core cases where somebody handed over information about troop
movements directly to someone the collaborator believed to be “the
enemy,” to American POWs collaborating with North Korean captors, or to a
German American citizen who was part of a German sabotage team during
WWII. But the language of the statute is broad. It prohibits not only
actually aiding the enemy, giving intelligence, or protecting the enemy,
but also the broader crime of communicating—directly or indirectly—with
the enemy without authorization. That's the prosecution's theory here:
Manning knew that the materials would be made public, and he knew that
Al Qaeda or its affiliates could read the publications in which the
materials would be published. Therefore, the prosecution argues, by
giving the materials to WikiLeaks, Manning was “indirectly”
communicating with the enemy. Under this theory, there is no need to
show that the defendant wanted or intended to aid the enemy. The
prosecution must show only that he communicated the potentially harmful
information, knowing that the enemy could read the publications to which
he leaked the materials. This would be true whether Al Qaeda searched
the WikiLeaks database or the New York Times'. Hence the prosecutor's “Yes Ma'am.”
This
theory is unprecedented in modern American history. The prosecution
claims that there is, in fact precedent in Civil War cases, including
one from 1863 where a Union officer gave a newspaper in occupied
Alexandria rosters of Union units, and was convicted of aiding the enemy
and sentenced to three months. But Manning’s defense argues that the
Civil War cases involved publishing coded messages in newspapers and
personals, not leaking for reporting to the public at large. The other
major source that the prosecution uses is a 1920 military law treatise.
Even if the prosecutors are correct in their interpretations of these
two sources, which is far from obvious, the fact that they need to rely
on these old and obscure sources underscores how extreme their position
is in the twenty-first century.
In
fact, neither side disagrees with this central critique: That for 150
years, well before the rise of the modern First Amendment, the invention
of muckraking journalism, or the modern development of the watchdog
function of the press in democratic society, no one has been charged
with aiding the enemy simply for leaking information to the press for
general publication. Perhaps it was possible to bring such a charge
before the first amendment developed as it did in the past hundred
years, before the Pentagon Papers story had entered our national legend.
But before Rosa Parks and Brown vs. Board of Education there
was also a time when prosecutors could enforce the segregation laws of
Jim Crow. Those times have passed. Read in the context of American
constitutional history and the practice of at least a century and a half
(if not more) of “aiding the enemy” prosecutions, we should hope and
expect that the court will in fact reject the prosecution's novel and
aggressive interpretation of that crime.
But as long as the charge
remains live and the case undecided, the risk that a court will accept
this expansive and destructive interpretation is very real.
That’s
especially true when you consider that “aiding the enemy” could be
applied to civilians. Most provisions of the Uniform Code of Military
Justice apply only to military personnel. But Section 104, the “aiding
the enemy” section, applies simply to “any person.” To some extent, this
makes sense—a German-American civilian in WWII could be tried by
military commission for aiding German saboteurs under this provision.
There has been some back and forth in military legal handbooks, cases,
and commentary about whether and to what extent Section 104 in fact
applies to civilians. Most recently, Justice Stevens' opinion in the
Supreme Court case of Hamdan implies that Section 104 may in
fact apply to civilians and be tried by military commissions. But this
is not completely settled. Because the authorities are unclear, any
competent lawyer today would have to tell a prospective civilian
whistleblower that she may well be prosecuted for the capital offense of
aiding the enemy just for leaking to the press.
The past few years have seen a lot of attention to the Obama Administration's war on whistleblowing.
In the first move, the Administration revived the World War I Espionage
Act, an Act whose infamous origins included a 10-year prison term for a
movie director who made a movie that showed British soldiers killing
women and children during the Revolutionary War and was therefore
thought to undermine our wartime alliance with Britain, and was used to jail Eugene V. Debs and other political activists.
Barack Obama’s Department of Justice has brought more Espionage Act
prosecutions for leaks to the press than all prior administrations
combined since then, using the law as what the New York Times called an “ad hoc Official Secrets Act.”
If
Bradley Manning is convicted of aiding the enemy, the introduction of a
capital offense into the mix would dramatically elevate the threat to
whistleblowers. The consequences for the ability of the press to perform
its critical watchdog function in the national security arena will be
dire. And then there is the principle of the thing. However technically
defensible on the language of the statute, and however well-intentioned
the individual prosecutors in this case may be, we have to look at
ourselves in the mirror of this case and ask: Are we the America of
Japanese Internment and Joseph McCarthy, or are we the America of Ida
Tarbell and the Pentagon Papers? What kind of country makes
communicating with the press for publication to the American public a
death-eligible offense?
What a coup for Al Qaeda, to have maimed our constitutional spirit to the point where we might become that nation.Yochai Benkler is a professor at Harvard Law School and co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. curtesy of the http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112554#

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Extracts of a letter have emerged from Grahame Nicholls who was on the Chester Trades
Council at the time Peter Morrison – PPS to Thatcher – was the local MP.

‘After the 1987 general election, around 1990, I attended a meeting
of Chester Labour party where we were informed by the agent,Christine
Russell, that Peter Morrison would not be standing in 1992. He had been
caught in the toilets at Crewe station with a 15 year old boy. A deal
was struck between Labour, the local Tories, the local press and the
police that if he stood down at the next election the matter would go no
further’.

Peter Morrison the MP for Chester
was, at the same time, named by a number of abused children from Bryn
Estyn and Bryn Alyn in North Wales as a man who had raped and
sexually abused them

This unending cover-up has to end
and everyone involved has to be brought to account for aiding and
abetting this most heinous of crimes.

In October 2012, Rod Richards, a former MP and ex-leader of the Welsh Conservatives, implicated Morrison in the North Wales child abuse scandal.[7]
Between 1974 and 1990, up to 650 children from 40 children's homes
(such as Bryn Estyn in Wrexham), were sexually, physically and
emotionally abused. Richards said Morrison and another high-profile
Conservative were named in documents as regular and unexplained visitors
to the care homes.[8]

Independent reveals former Cabinet Minister may be charged with rape. Could this be a glimmer of hope ?

A former senior cabinet minister is now the subject of a rape
allegation currently being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Police investigating possible child abuse at the Elm Guest House in West
London have submitted a file on the former minister, and the CPS is
expected to come to a decision over the matter during the summer. The
claims are not believed to relate to the abuse of minors at the
guesthouse, and the alleged victim was over the age of consent.

The allegation follows evidence given to the Metropolitan
Police’s Operation Fernbridge, which is investigating claims that a
well-connected paedophile ring was operating from a guesthouse in Rocks
Lane, Barnes, south-west London, in the early 1980s. The inquiry has
been examining hundreds of leads submitted to it after a politician
claimed that a historic paedophile ring with connections to Downing
Street had been in operation there. The extent, breadth and wide
timeframe of the claims led police to look beyond the Elm Guest House’s
allegedly dark epoch and beyond the abuse of children.
Police
have been looking into claims that young boys from the Grafton Close
care home, run by Richmond council, were sexually assaulted at the
guesthouse – now a block of respectable flats. It is alleged that the
boys were taken to organised parties at the house attended by prominent
people, where they were made to dress up. The parties were often “Kings
and Queens” themed, a practice begun around the time of the Silver
Jubilee in 1977.
The lack of charges relating to the
guest house has given rise to counter-claims of “conspiracy theories”
and cover-ups. But in January, The Independent on Sunday
revealed that the disgraced Liberal Democrat politician Sir Cyril Smith,
who for decades abused children without ever facing justice, was a
regular visitor to the Elm Guest House.
The revelation
came after police raided the house of one childcare worker and seized
documents said to contain the names of some of those who stayed at the
guesthouse. Those on the list also included prominent politicians,
judges and celebrities.
The Fernbridge investigation came in the wake of the allegations surrounding the TV presenter and DJ Jimmy Savile.
In
October last year, Tom Watson MP told Parliament that an evidence file
on Peter Righton, a former child care worker convicted of importing
illegal homosexual pornography in 1992, contained “clear intelligence of
a widespread paedophile ring”. At Prime Minister’s Questions, he said:
“One of its members boasts of a link to a senior aide of a former prime
minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from
abroad.”
Scotland Yard is still investigating those
claims, as well as suggestions that its officers failed to carry out a
proper examination of child abuse claims in Richmond in 2003, when the
Independent Police Complaints Commission received allegations from a
concerned council worker.

Friday, 19 July 2013

GOVERNMENT advisor Susan Stewart has been charged by police
over claims she had fraudulently claimed to have a medical
qualification.

Susan Stewart, sitting on the Scottish Parliament Committee in 2010

A RESPECTED government adviser on child protection has been charged
with fraud over allegations that she falsely claimed to have a medical
qualification.

Susan Stewart, 43, worked with some
of the most vulnerable children in Scotland for more than a decade –
advising courts and local councils on whether they should be taken into
care.

The mum of two, who referred to herself as Dr Susan Stewart
and was called on as an expert by a Scottish Government committee, was
manager of a child and family assessment centre for leading Scots
children’s charity Aberlour Child Care Trust.
She is no longer in the post after it was alleged she had fraudulently claimed to have a medical qualification.
Prosecutors are now considering a police report.
The
focus of the investigation is whether, and for what period, Stewart
allegedly misled MSPs, council officials and her own bosses at the
charity, where she worked for more than a decade.
Last night, a
child protection services source said: “This has come as a total shock
to everyone involved in child protection in Scotland.
“Stewart was an integral part of the welfare system for youngsters and no one can believe the nature of the investigation.
“She has left the charity but I just hope the police investigation doesn’t reveal anything sinister in her motives.”
Stewart
was head of Aberlour’s Langlees family centre in Falkirk and would have
had a role in taking a number of children away from their parents and
placing them into care.
She worked with children whose parents had
alcohol or drug problems but the charity have refused to reveal the
extent of the cases she was responsible for.
Stewart also provided
independent assessments to councils, courts and childcare professionals
seeking to decide on the best course of action for children,
particularly in some of the most challenging child care protection
cases.
And she sat as an expert on the Scottish Parliament’s
finance committee when they considered the impact of budgets on child
welfare.
She was referred to as Dr Stewart and the position
allowed her to mingle with other charity executives and MSPs sitting on
the cross-party committee.
Aberlour are Scotland’s largest
dedicated children’s charity and have centres across the country from
the Borders to Aberdeenshire.
They run outreach and residential
services to help families affected by substance abuse and deal with
children from birth up to age 16.
Stewart represented the charity
at conferences across the country and held workshops for delegates at
events organised by Aberlour.
She wouldn’t comment on the
accusations when we approached her at the home she rents with her
partner Stewart Brough Taylor, 61, in Larbert, Stirlingshire.
Police
Scotland confirmed a 43-year-old woman has been charged over fraud
offences and has been reported to the procurator fiscal.
The Crown Office said the report, which concerns alleged incidents occurring between 2003 and 2012, remains under consideration.
An
Aberlour spokesperson said: “As we are helping the police with an
ongoing investigation, we are unable to comment further on the matter.”
This is not the first time the charity have been mired in scandal.
In 2003, they took on predatory paedophile Charles McKenna, then 82, as a volunteer to mentor vulnerable children.
They
did ban him – but not before he had been allowed to befriend an
eight-year-old boy – after being alerted by police that he was
previously convicted of being at the heart of a child sex abuse ring at St Ninian’s School in Gartmore, Stirlingshire.

Thursday, 18 July 2013

London Victim Of Chabad Child Sex Abuser Speaks Out

Menachem Mendel Levy’s London Chabad community backed Levy – who comes from a prominent
family there – and vilified his victim. They labeled her a prostitute,
promiscuous, an enticer, a liar and too insufficiently religious to be
trusted.

The Jewish Chronicle has snared
an interview with Yehudis Goldsobel, the victim of Menachem Mendel
Levy, who began sexually abusing Goldsobel when she was a very young
teen.

Levy – who was convicted in May and sentenced last month to
three years in prison – was in his late 20s when the sexual abuse
began.

Levy’s London Chabad community backed Levy, who comes from
a prominent family there, and vilified Goldsobel. They labeled her a
prostitute, promiscuous, an enticer, a liar and too insufficiently
religious to be trusted.

Goldsobel waived her legal right to anonymity in order to speak publicly about the abuse.

“She
speaks of the ‘horrible, messy process’ of battling through the courts,
and how she was ostracized from her community — which she was told was
her ‘punishment from God’ for being ‘less Orthodox,’” the JC writes.

Goldsobel said her decision to report Levy to police was not easy.

“It’s not a triumph, it wasn’t something to celebrate, but it was something I had to do,” she reportedly said.

Goldsobel
reportedly created a charity, Migdal Emunah, to help abuse victims in
the Jewish community. She told the JC, which will be publishing its full
interview with Goldsobel in the near future, that she hopes that her
charity, along with telling her story publicly, will encourage others
abuse victims to come forward. And she hopes that through this raising
of awareness about child sexual abuse, no one else will have to suffer
like she suffered.

Child sexual exploitation

U.S. law enforcement agencies have seen a dramatic increase in cases
of sexual exploitation of children since the 1990s. According to a report
to Congress in 2010. [4]

In 2006 U.S. attorneys handled 82.8 percentmore child
pornography cases than they had in 1994.

State and local law enforcement agencies involved in Internet Crimes
Against Children Task Forces reported a 230 percentincrease in
the number of documented complaints of online enticement of children from
2004 to 2008.

ICAC Task Forces noted a more than 1,000 percent increase in
complaints of child prostitution from 2004 to 2008.

As of December 2012, the CyberTipline has received more than 1.7
million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation since
it was launched in 1998. Suspected child sexual exploitation can be reported
to the CyberTipline at www.cybertipline.com or
1-800-843-5678.

Missing children

The most recent, comprehensive national study for the number of missing
children estimated in 1999: [1]

Approximately 800,000 children younger than 18 were
reported missing.

More than 200,000 children were abducted by family members.

More than 58,000 children were abducted by nonfamily
members.

An estimated 115 children were the victims of “stereotypical”
kidnapping. These “stereotypical” kidnappings involved someone the
child did not know or was an acquaintance. The child was held overnight,
transported 50 miles or more, killed, ransomed or held with the intent
to keep the child permanently.

The first three hours are the
most critical when trying to locate a missing child. The murder of
an abducted child is rare, and an estimated 100 cases in which an
abducted child is murdered occur in the U.S. each year. A 2006 study
indicated that 76.2 percent of abducted children who are killed are
dead within three hours of the abduction. [2]

The
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® has assisted
law enforcement in the recovery of more than 183,000 missing
children since it was founded in 1984. Our recovery rate for missing
children has grown from 62 percent in 1990 to 97
percent today.

The AMBER
Alert program
was created in 1996 and is operated by the U.S. Department of Justice.
As of April 17, 2013, 642 children have been successfully
recovered as a result of the program. [3]

As of December 2012, NCMEC’s toll free, 24 hour call center has received
more than 3,716,044 calls since it was created in 1984.
Information about missing or exploited children can be reported to the
call center by calling 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would
things have been like… if, during periods of mass arrests, … people had
not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of
the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had
understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the
downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers,
pokers, or whatever else was at hand?- Alexander Solzhenitsyn